


Missing Villagers, Broken Fountains, and also a Cat

by purple_pyro



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Gen, in writing at least, nothing happens to the cat i promise, very spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2276967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_pyro/pseuds/purple_pyro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I really like these two's relationship and their odd "who's babysitting whom" dynamic. So I wrote something actiony. Not much to say other than it needs restating that the two most dangerous men on the planet are secretly six year olds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Villagers, Broken Fountains, and also a Cat

The market square was in ruin. Many of the buildings were only half standing, leaning lopsidedly on broken supports. Rubble littered the cobblestone roads. The vendor stalls were crushed and caved in, spilling homegrown vegetables and fruit onto the ground. The marble fountain in the center had jagged sections of the bowl missing, though the untouched water pipes continued to spout, slowly flooding the streets. The statue of a woman in the center had her arms raised as if conducting the waves. The only sounds were a vulture overhead, the gurgling of the water, the wind through unpruned birch trees, and a pair of footsteps.

"See anything, Stein?" Spirit's face appeared in the dark blade of the scythe, which the meister gripped in one hand uneasily as he walked through the market square.

Stein shook his head. "No. It's empty. But there's a few things wrong here."

"I'm seeing more than a few," the death scythe eyed him, suspicious. Stein was testing him, as he liked to do whenever they were waiting. It was never out of mistrust, simply a way to push each other's buttons until something happened.

The scientist hummed. "Go on."

Spirit motioned to a building with his head. "There's a cat in that window, but no human souls of any kind. They were just after people."

"People?"

"You know what I mean. They were precise, exact. They didn't waste time on anything other than what they were looking for. Which is at the very least, every soul in this town."

"..."

"Except cats."

Stein allowed himself a smile. "After this is done, I'm gonna-"

"Dissect it. Yeah, I know." Spirit gave a mirthless laugh. "Speaking of blood, there's a suspicious lack of it."

"Maybe brute force?" the meister said.

"We both know you can't reap souls with bare hands."

Stein scanned the area before them for the eighteenth time. "No bullet holes or scorch marks. The buildings are too splintered to have been cut down with blades. Too many large pieces anyway."

"That leaves demon weapons with blunt forms, and-"

"Magic," they said at the same time.

The death scythe sighed. "I thought you said the place is empty."

"It is. Soul protect only masks wavelengths to look like ordinary human souls, and it's impossible to completely suppress a wavelength."

Spirit slumped a little. "So they're gone?"

"Probably."

"Dammit. Am I good to transform back then?"

Splish. Stein looked down at the puddle he'd stepped in, the water steadily trickling from the broken fountain only a few steps in front of him. He eyed the crumbling marble curiously, then looked over his shoulder. "I think you may want to wait on that."

"Something wrong?"

"Absolutely."

Stein sliced off a chunk of the fountain, water gushing out onto the street. Six feet behind them, it hit something invisible, the water parting around it as if someone was standing there. Stein lunged, swinging wide. The invisible figure jumped and landed farther off with a splash.

"Stein, what is it?" Spirit asked.

Stein narrowed his eyes. "A ghost shell. An dying spirit if you will."

"Was that a jab at me?"

"I could make it one."

"Just- ugh," Spirit growled.

There was a whoosh coming from the left, and Stein ducked as something swung over his head. "You know what a ghost is? Scientifically."

The death scythe realized they were back to testing. "The byproduct of when a pure human's soul is reaped but isn't consumed. It continues to function as if it were still alive, which uses up energy and eventually decays the soul."

Stein kicked up water in a fruitless attempt to refind the ghost. It attacked from behind, nearly missing the meister as he sidestepped. "You skipped something."

"I wasn't done. The soul tries to restabilize by making its own artificial body, which is how you get the image of a person. That's the shell," Spirit answered. "It's only a temporary vessel though. The souls keep decaying until they are either eaten or disintegrate. Watch right!"

Stein turned to his right, blocking the shell's attack with the staff of the scythe. "Thank you."

Spirit nodded as the meister continued to fend off the invisible fiend. "Hey. Ghosts need energy to make the shells. Is this one smart enough to realize that eating our souls would help it stay alive?"

Stein swiped at empty air, turning to the left when he heard the splash indicating its location. "I don't think it could resurrect itself anyway. Ghosts are usually very passive. And even if it killed us, it couldn't reap our souls."

"So why's it fighting?"

Stein blocked an attack and stared into where its face would have been. "I don't know. Despite the advantage of invisibility its attacks are still infrequent, predictable, and weak." As if to prove his point, he jabbed it in the stomach with the butt end of the staff.

"We can't just keep splashing it though. That'll only work until the others come," Spirit said.

Stein quirked an eyebrow. "Others?"

"Yeah. Ghost often c- wait, what is this? I know something that you don't? Something that even the great Doctor Franken Stein doesn't know!?" Spirit cackled and his meister eyed him grumpily. "I can't wait to get home and tell Marie, this is great-"

"Spirit, please. As long as we're here, we're still in danger."

The death scythe waved off the comment. "We've been in worse. This almost feels like pract-"

"SPIRIT!"

"Ghosts usually come in either ones or large groups as a result of a big tragedy. And by the look of this town I'm not betting on the former."

Stein finally got a clean slice through the ghost shell, whose silhouette of a young man glimmered before shattering. A sickly, misshapen soul bobbed in its stead, with sunken, caved-in sides and a dull, unsaturated color. He snatched it out of the air, holding it by its stubby tail and frowning. "It's so weak it doesn't have a wavelength. No wonder I couldn't sense it."

"So how long do you think until the rest appear?" Spirit asked.

"They're probably already here and are just hiding," Stein said, toying with the soul.

"Well, even if they're weak, they're not friendly. The mission was to find the disappearing souls and take out anything malicious. This sort of complicates things," said Spirit. "I guess we'll have to make them come out, preferably visible."

Stein nodded. "The first part is easy. But we can't fight a whole town blindly and without soul perception."

"Commotion for part one. ...Hey Stein, is there property damage to literal ghost towns?"

"Who would you even pay it to?"

The death scythe smiled. "Ooh, fun. It looks like we've got half a plan."

Stein smirked. "No, a full one."

Spirit's eyes narrowed. "Wait... oh no. I'm already scared." Stein didn't respond, simply smiling manically to himself. "Oh god, not that face. Is this gonna be like the lamppost incident?"

Stein glowered. "I thought I told you to never speak of that."

"Too late," Spirit said off-handedly.

Stein didn't let his annoyance show. "I wouldn't say it's lamppost incident tier. But it's still pretty risky."

"Chance of success?" Spirit ventured.

The meister continued to toy with the ghost's soul, gripping the scythe in his other hand tightly. "36%."

"Chance of regret?"

"84%."

"The answer is always 100 though."

"Maybe for you, but-" Stein stopped as something sharp dug into his shoulder blade, choking a pained cry as a long red line began to run down the back of his lab coat. He spun around, halving the ghost shell cleanly. Its visible weapon, a now-bloodied knife, clattered to the floor as another starving soul bobbed in mid-air.

"Stein!? You alright?" Spirit asked concernedly.

"Yeah. Small but deep." The scientist eyed the soul in his hand and the soul in front him. His grip grew even tighter. "We shouldn't have been wasting time."

Spirit returned to human form, one arm still a dark blade. "That's both our faults. First we need to move."

Stein soundlessly took his weapon's advice. With a hand on his left shoulder, he found an awning that had collapsed on its side and took shelter. He turned to face the one open entrance, which Spirit stood guard.

"We get out of here, you dress that wound, and I'll get you that cat. Deal?"

"Don't be careless."

"That's my meister." Spirit smiled though his back was turned. "Mind telling me part two of the plan? How we're gonna catch what we can't see?"

"We'll only have to get one of them. As a question of ethics, what would happen to these souls if we returned them to Shibusen?"

Spirit watched the puddles for movement as he answered. "Nobody can eat these, so the only other way to take them to the afterlife would be to destroy them and let the spirits find their way there on their own."

Stein nodded. "I can't wield a scythe effectively with one hand, so I'm leaving it up to you to lure out a ghost shell and make it visible. Just don't kill it. I'll take over from there," Stein said determinedly.

Spirit looked over his shoulder to see him. "Sounds good. Don't bleed excessively or anything."

"Yeah, I'll try to stay alive," Stein replied casually as Spirit dashed out into the street. The weapon winked and beelined for the fountain.

Spirit tried and failed to not enjoy himself as he sliced through the fountain's figurine, effectively beheading it. The spout inside it was severed next, and the fountain burst, flooding the street until there was standing water.

"I love my job!"

"I said don't be careless!"

Soaked to his shins, Spirit ignored his meister's nagging as he turned towards sidewalk. He ran inside to slice through the main support beam before kicking down the entrance door and exiting with a proud smile. Slashing cleanly through the restaurant's front side with one arm, the top half of the building leaned forward. The death scythe snatched a tablecloth off a porch table before sidestepping the collapsing building. Wooden beams creaking, the restaurant caved in and spilled onto the porch with a splash.

"What are you doing!?" Stein said, slightly curious and slightly angry.

"Pissing off ghosts!" Spirit replied cheerfully, drenched up to his chest.

"And they say I'm the crazy one," Stein muttered to himself as the death scythe retransformed his arm, listening for any sounds while gripping the checkered tablecloth in both hands.

Splish. Splish. Spirit tracked the waves back up the street. An invisible figure stood not far from the wreckage.

"Gotcha!" Spirit leapt off the sidewalk and aimed a kick at it chest, knocking the ghost onto its back. He draped it in the tablecloth before wrapping it up and hauling it over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"What now, Stein?"

"Bring it here." Spirit shifted the ghost shell on his shoulder and walked towards him, water sloshing around his ankles. He held up the ghost shell in front of himself, simultaneously showing it off and hiding behind it from what Stein was about to do. Spirit leaned back when he saw the scientist draw his fist back, and flinched when he saw it coming towards the shell's chest.

"Soul force!" Stein dug the heel of his palm into its sternum, and the ghost shell exploded, shattering into pieces that fell out of Spirit's hands like glass shards before vanishing. This time, there was no soul. Sounds of explosions boomed and echoed throughout the wrecked village, coming ten at a time as if someone had accidentally launched all the fireworks at the same time. There was nothing to do but wait until it was over, a full five minutes of what could've been canon fire.

Only when it finally stopped did the Spirit ask, "you sent your soul wavelength into it?"

Stein nodded. "I noticed that there was an odd connection between the two ghost souls we collected. Almost like they were attached by a string, and were feeding off each other. I figured that if they were that starved for energy, overpowering them with it would not only effectively destroy it but cause a chain reaction."

Spirit noted that the two souls from earlier were gone. "Hmm. Nice work then."

Stein didn't acknowledge the compliment. "Should we head back then?"

"Contact Lord Death first. Then I have a deal I guess I have to make good on."

\-----

"I'm giving you five minutes. I'm not letting myself get infected because of carelessness."

" _Our_ carelessness!" Spirit shouted back at his meister as he charged up the apartment stairs, on the lookout for that cat he'd seen in the window when they'd first arrived. A promise was a promise, even if he'd just volunteered an innocent house pet as a test subject for someone who definitely should not be allowed around animals. How he got a hold of those endangered species for his classes, Spirit had no clue.

The death scythe took a sharp turn to the right. Finding the door locked, he sliced through the lock with one transformed arm. Turning it back into regular form, Spirit opened the door to find the cat snoozing in a patch of sunlight. It was sort of funny, unaware of the fate of its owner or its own as it slept calmly. 

"Hey Stein," Spirit asked out the open window. "Do you want it alive or dead?" 

"Unconscious, if possible." 

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing happens to the cat I promise. Or if you want, it is horribly mutilated at the hands of a psychotic doctor. Who knows. Anyway this was fun. Hope the action wasn't too vague.


End file.
